THE “goodwill of workers at the BT Group has run dry,” their union warned yesterday as it announced 999 emergency workers are set to join the latest wave of strikes at the privatised firm. 

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) confirmed that more than 500 emergency call operators will join 30,000 Openreach engineers and 10,000 BT call centre employees when they down tools on October 6, 10, 20 and 24.

An agreement between the union and BT had seen the 999 workers excluded from the first four 24-hour strikes held in July and August, which followed bosses imposing a below-inflation flat rate of £1,500 pay boost without consultation in April.